If you’ve never heard the “Baby Shark” song before, consider yourself blessed.
You’re probably one of only a handful of people left in the world whose ears have graciously been spared the darn near torturous experience of listening to one the catchiest children’s songs in history.
As for the rest of us, however, we know exactly how infuriatingly memorable that little tune is, and I think we can all agree we would go out of our way to avoid hearing it on a loop while we’re trying to sleep.
One Florida city has recognized that most people would understandably hate to have to endure this same experience.
So, in an effort to deter their homeless population from setting up camp in a public park, West Palm Beach has opted to blast some of the most annoying children’s songs known to man overnight.
Fittingly featured on that playlist is the song that launched a thousand mental breakdowns — “Baby Shark.”
West Palm Beach has been battling to keep homeless people from congregating on the patio of a city-owned banquet facility.
The glass-walled Waterfront Lake Pavilion is a popular spot for locals to hold their events, having reporting hosted 164 events from June 1, 2018 to June 30 of this year. Almost half of those were weddings.
The hall’s annual revenue amounts to about $240,000 for the city, making it a particularly profitable park.
Parks and Recreation Director Leah Rockwell said people spend a lot of money to host their events at the facility.
“Thousands of dollars,” she emphasized. “We want to make sure people paying this money had a facility that was clean and open and continue to use it in the future.”
However, conditions inside the park have been less-than-savory with the increase in homeless populations there.
“Workers in the morning were finding some unsanitary things, including human feces, around the Lake Pavilion,” Mayor Keith James told Fox News .
As such, city officials have been desperate to find some way to keep the homeless out of this area. The solution? “Baby Shark”, of course.
City spokeswoman Kathleen Walter said in a statement that the city plays music at the pavilion overnight, every night.
This, she said, is an effort to discourage “congregating at the building” and to “encourage people to seek safer, more appropriate shelter.”
She added, “The music volume complies with City code, and is a temporary measure, as we are exploring the possibility of having set hours for the Great Lawn and Pavilion.”
Rockwell said West Palm Beach has plenty of outreach programs to help its homeless community.
However, it doesn’t want these individuals to have a negative impact on one of its more popular and profitable commercial venues
“We are not forcing individuals to stay on the patio of the pavilion to listen to the music,” she said.
So what else is featured on this hideously annoying musical playlist?
In addition to the “doo doo doo doo doo doo’s”, the homeless are being driven out with the maddeningly contagious “Raining Tacos” song.
While its lyrics aren’t quite as simple as “Baby Shark”, the song is equally mind-numbingly awful and will certainly work wonders at keeping people out. On YouTube, the video currently has 30 million views, comparable to “Baby Shark’s” over 3 billion hits.
Now the only question that remains is, does this music work well enough to keep people away?
In an interview with the Palm Beach Post , Illaya Champion, a member of West Palm Beach’s homeless community, said he isn’t a fan of the song selection, but is willing to endure the children’s tunes if it means getting some shelter.
“It don’t bother me,” he said. “I still lay down in there, but it’s on and on — the same songs.”
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So perhaps in some ways the music does work, though this also just goes to prove that when people are desperate, they will Doo doo doo doo doo doo just about anything for shelter.
h/t: CNN , Palm Beach Post
